Music, Style & Culture

Gruff Rhys: ‘There’s Still A Lot To Learn’

A wholesome chat about forthcoming release, 'Hotel Shampoo'.

It is no secret that this particular writer has a crush the size of a small, but perfectly formed, country on Gruff Rhys, I've confessed as much before. Much of the preparation for this interview has involved learning how to propose in Welsh, and so it shows a good deal of self restraint that I instead settled on a wholesome chat about forthcoming release, 'Hotel Shampoo', recent cinematic foray 'Seperado!', and what delights we can expect from his imminent tour. Be proud of me, dear reader. I'll be turning down chocolate next...

The new record, 'Hotel Shampoo', comes out on 14th February, can you let us in as to what to expect?
I suppose musically speaking it's in my comfort zone, which is probably a bit of a lazy way making records, but sometimes you have to make a record that's very familiar. It's a weakness to play with your strengths, I guess, but you need to do that as a sort of grounding thing. It's not the most adventurous, well, it's probably the least adventurous way of working, but it's a lot to do with the song writing elements, and trying to make a simple record. The piano was the main instrument, and it ended up with a lot of instruments, the piano was the most consistent throughout.
Some of the songs were recorded with Andy Votel - Shark Ridden Waters, and also Christopher Columbus. It was very interesting to work with him, I'm a huge fan of his records, and a lot of his work uses samples, so I went to him with that in mind. What I didn't expect is that he'd be giving me lots of advice, in terms of song craft and structure of sounds. I've released hundreds of songs and there's still a lot to learn; for example, the second chorus came in straight after the second verse, and he said that there's got to be some build, there's got to be some suspense, you can't just come in with the second chorus straight after the second verse. So he tried to sustain it a bit, and he's completely right. So from now on, all my second choruses will have a gap!

And Miles Kane (Rascals, Last of the Shadow Puppets) also makes an appearance on the album? How did that come about?
About two years ago, he asked me to produce his record, and I started to write some songs to help him. He started coming around my house and the idea was to kind of help him channel his ideas. I ended up going to the studio with him and producing a couple of songs, that I think are going to end up on his album. What I discovered about him is he's an incredible surf guitarist, he's like a guitar god, and I dunno, people know him as a singer, but get him to play a solo... He plays on 'Space Dust #2'.

Lisa Jen's vocals were a strong feature of your last album, Candylion, does she appear on 'Hotel Shampoo'?
She's not on the album, but hopefully she's going to help me out at some of the gigs. She was in London (for the recent Toynbee Hall gig), so I pestered her to come sing with me, I love singing with her because we have the same accent and she's an amazing singer, so I think that she's going to do two or three gigs with me.

One of the highlights of your live shows to date has been when you create massive soundscapes using children's toys and the like, will that still feature?
This next tour's going to be slightly different, in that I invited a band called Y Niwl to open, and I also asked them to help me play some of the songs from 'Hotel Shampoo', and they said yes. I was hoping they'd help me out on a few songs, but they're such a good band that we ended up rehearsing twenty eight songs from my solo back catalogue, so we're going to be playing a lot of songs in full, and maybe they'll sound more like they do on the albums. But I'm hoping we can make a bit of time to do some sound making, as well. Gigs can be very powerful, especially when you have visuals, which is something we do a lot with the Super Furry Animals, and then if you're playing in an intimate venue, it's nice if people can see how you're making the sounds.

The album title comes from the toiletries you liberate from hotels, right?
It's all disposable crap. The little sewing kit might be useful, I've never used the shoe horn or the shower cap. I'm amazed by all this free stuff that's given away, it's very wasteful, so it's a monument to waste.

Neon Neon were featured in a question on University Challenge a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Paxman asked who 'Stainless Style' was about...
Were they?! Did they get it right?

I'm not sure, I was so excited I missed the answer, I think not though. Is there any chance of a follow up album to give them another chance?
It'd be great, but we're both really busy. Boom Bip is finishing his album that he's been working on for ages, but if we did something again it'd have to be a really strong idea.

Did you enjoy the whole 'concept album' process?
Yeah! The Neon Neon album was an amazing way to work, because I've never really worked to a theme before. I've had songs that have been written already and I've collected together, like with 'Hotel Shampoo', I've put together a group of melancholy songs, songs that I've already had... but the 'Stainless Style' album was amazing, because there was a definite theme, so it was a matter of finding the ten most consistent themes of John Delorean's life and then writing a song about each. So it was a really fast and furious way of working, we were just scouring books and the internet for information and inspiration to do with different parts of his life, and a really amazing experience.

Do you find it difficult to decide which songs are Super Furry Animals tracks, and which you're going to use on another project?
Songs just come, you know, you write them and then think, 'Candylion' would be too twee, I don't think everyone in the band would necessarily enjoy playing it. If a song's kind of too obvious... There's a couple of songs on the new record, that we did record as a band, but there just wasn't any room for them. So there's a song, 'Take A Sentence', there's a Super Furry Animals version of that, but I hadn't finished the words properly and it just didn't fit. And then I think there's 'Space Dust #1', which we jammed, but it wasn't finished. So I finished it as a song and called it 'Space Dust #2'.

It's been a pretty busy twelve months for you, right? As well as the album, you have a film out, 'Seperado!'?
Yeah, it's out on DVD! It took about five years to make. In a nutshell, it's an investigative concert tour that I undertook in South America, looking for a long lost distant uncle, called René Griffiths, who was a guitarist, a long haired singing guitarist, from the 1950s. The film's about tracing the history of how he ended up there and we filmed some gigs, and there's some special effects, it's like a Science Fiction Investigative Concert Tour.

And you've appeared as a guest on the David Lynch/Dangermouse/Sparklehorse project 'Dark Night Of The Soul', as well as the Gorillaz album?
I've been friends with Dangermouse for a number of years and it's a song that sounded good years ago. You send it back, then for various reasons, it didn't come out until the last year. It's one of my favourite songs I've ever been involved with, I think, because I dunno what he did to my vocals, but that's one of my best vocal takes ever. I think it sounded quite rough... and he senses it and he brings some magic to it.
And the Gorillaz thing just happened, I bumped into Damon and he asked me to come down the studio, tried me on a couple of songs, and we had a jam. It was great to see how he works.

So you don't have a wish list of people you'd like to work with?
No, it's always been just people I know and it's been quite by chance, I don't look for it really. An exception would be El Perro Del Mar, getting her to sing on 'Hotel Shampoo'. I've never met her but I am just a huge fan of her songwriting, she's like a Scandinavian Brian Wilson. So that's an exception, in that I approached her to possibly sing by email, I'm not sure if I've ever done that before!

One final question, whatever happened the Super Furry Animals tank?
We sold it to Don Henley from the Eagles, it's on his ranch in Texas. He has a ranch where he keeps his collection of armed vehicles, we shipped it over to Texas, but he had no interest in the band, it's just the model he was interested in. I think he painted over the band graphics...